Campbell Armstrong’s blog

The most hilarious, perhaps even the most welcome moment of the drawn-out contest for the Democratic Presidential nomination, came for me when Hillary Clinton spoke in somber terms the other day of how ‘the Holy Spirit’ moved her at such times as sunsets, or sunrises – take your pick. I was stricken with disbelief by the visible transparency of her statement, then succumbed to laughter. I ought not to have been so incredulous, because nothing she says ever seems to me to have the heft of truth, every utterance comes out as whatever feels politically useful to her at any given time.

Coupled with this revelation about the Holy Spirit, which presumably came to her recently on her road to the Democratic Convention - not exactly Damascus - was the folksy narrative of how her grandfather had built a cabin near Scranton and there he’d taught her to use a gun. Questioned about the last time she’d used a firearm, she dismissed the question as irrelevant, her standard approach when she deems an answer to have no political value. She was taught how to fire a gun, but wouldn’t admit when she’d fired one last? Why not? Is she ashamed to say so? Would an answer lose her some of the anti-gun vote? Or would it win her more of the pro-gun? It was possible to see her do lightning mental calculations on the spot. Because this is the essence of the woman: calculation.

What troubles me deeply about this woman, apart from her stridency, her shrillness – so reminiscent of a nag with a rolling-pin awaiting the return of a feckless spouse - is her transparently ruthless ambition. Ruthless ambition, you know, is a demanding master. It allows nothing to stand in her way – including truth. Including conviction. Including the future fortunes of her Party. Her only loyalty is to herself.

I am also perplexed at the fact that so many thousands of American voters are able to swallow her comments without seeing through this veil, without feeling a sense of revulsion at the transparency of her statements - because she is a terribly poor actress. Her every appearance, whether she is chiding her opponent, or insulting him, or latching on to new-found religious convictions or staking claims to experiences and achievements that exist only in her own mind, reminds me of a badly-trained thespian given an accidental glimpse of an Oscar, a chance she has lucked into and knows will never come again.

In pursuit of the chalice, she touts herself as one who understands ‘the blue collar’ vote. I wonder. Either the blue collars are pretty gullible, or they are blinded by Clintonitis. How can this woman relate to the luckless, the jobless, the unhappy, when she has no problem in sitting down to write herself a five million dollar check? How can she know what it is like to be on the impoverished margins of the American Dream when she makes public the Clinton income and reveals a stratospheric amount of money that these same blue collar voters can’t even imagine, other than via a winning lottery ticket? Where is the bridge that leads the deprived to the belief that this woman can change their fortunes by bringing back their jobs, and with them their dignity?

Beneath her shallowness, and her zealous self-conviction that she must at all costs be the nominee, something else is more profoundly worrying - the trivialization of politics. She has no great dreams of a better future for Americans, a future where the United States is not a buzzword for tragic foreign misadventures (one of which she voted for herself), no vision of a once-great nation – so diminished by the brutal Bush - gaining its moral equilibrium in the world again. Instead, she trots out by rote her assortment of economic plans, but she isn’t really interested in all that big stuff. No, what she does is to seek out the utterly trivial, to leap all over any ‘misspoken’ words of her opponent, to put under the microscope of her ambition any wayward moments in her opponent’s campaign, to promote and capitalize on his alleged ‘elitism’ or deride him for using the word ‘bitter’ – my God, what an error! Her instinct is to capitalize on tiny moments that in the great scheme of things matter not at all. And so we get the fuss, the harping, the spin, the rants – and all the while the real goals are diminished, or shoved aside, and any future vision obscured in the momentary pecking at silly words, or such obvious insults as “He’s a Christian – as far as I know.” This isn’t what the United States is supposed to be about. Unfortunately, Clinton is dragging it in this direction, and forgotten that not so very long ago there was a Dream.

But that is what ruthless ambition does. It blinds, and it blinkers. Which indicates a gloomy future that will be no better than the recent Republican past.

And perhaps even worse.

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Of course the answer is none, no chance: my country failed to qualify, which is frequently and painfully the case. We crash too often on the rocks of qualification in groups where we might have equipped ourselves better. This constant failure bruises Scottish pride - didn’t we practically invent the game? Maybe not, but we were there at the cradle - the Glasgow clubs of Queen’s Park, Celtic and Rangers came into existence in the late 1800s, which at least gives Scotland some kind of priviliged presence at the birthing of football. But alas no status.

Our national teams have been generally putrid. In my lifetime I can recall humiliating defeats by Uruguay (7-0), Morocco (3-0), and - say it quietly - Costa Rica (1-0). Our teams have been inadequate, although some outstanding, if flawed, individual players have appeared over the years. The late Jinky Jimmy Johnstone, tricky Celtic winger, a sorceror of great gifts, was once found floating out to sea alone in a rowing-boat, after an ‘escapade’ at training-camp. The elegant Slim Jim Baxter, whose prodigious skills were combined with an arrogance as consuming as his thirst, saved his best displays for games against England - and was dominant in humiliating the Auld Enemy in London the year after England won The World Cup. I remember walking through Soho that sunny afternoon. Tartan-draped fans chanted The World Cup Was Fixed, and they meant it.
We’ve also been cursed by the occasional megalomaniacal coach. The likeable, slightly daft Ally McLeod sits at the head of this table. He singlehandedly frothed the people of Scotland into believing we were going to win the World Cup in Argentina in 1978. Master of enthusiasm, Ally had the evangelical persuasion of a Billy Graham. He was also seriously self-deluded - no great failing in Scottish eyes. In the first game, Peru defeated Scotland 3-1, which was followed by a draw with Iran - Iran! - most Scottish fans expected we’d steamroller these neophytes, but no. We went into that game with our customary unjustified arrogance and screwed up. The third match was against Holland, one of the favourites, and although we won 3-2, it wasn’t enough, and we were eliminated.
So, yes, it pains us to look at events taking place in Germany even as I write this. We believe we should be there. How do you imagine it feels if you’re a Scot and you see teams like Serbia and Montenegro involved. Or Togo. And what about the USA for God’s sake - they don’t even call football by its rightful name? Oh it hurts all right…

The underlying truth hurts even more, and runs contrary to Scottish footballing pride and tradition - we’re just not good enough. A tiny nation of five million people, we don’t produce players with the skills needed to win World Cups, never mind qualify for them. Did we ever have these skills? Did we just dream it? Are we all affected at birth by the same enthusiastic nationalism as Ally McLeod - and believe we’re a proud world-class footballing nation, or that we can become one?

Scottish footballing glory. Who’s like us? Damn few, and they’re all deid. We tell ourselves hazy heathery tales when we gather in pubs and the aqua vitae is flowing and the night is darkly bitter outside. One day, mate. One day…I don’t think any Scots believe this. The fact is our local game is swamped with non-Scottish players and promising Scottish kids give way to imports scraped from from an assortment of European clubs. So we don’t have a long line of talented boys waiting to wear the dark blue jersey. We don’t belong with the Togos of this world - and even if there was some calamitous tectonic shift and we found ourselves having to qualify out of Africa, I doubt we’d have the skills to do it.

So we watch events in Germany and maybe we’re secretly glad we’re not there to be humiliated. Or maybe we’d love to be there and humiliation be damned. Pride is one thing, participation another - we’re not in there with the Big Boys. But we usually find an unlikely candidate to support in place of Scotland - and this time it’s Trinidad & Tobago, who are surely no-hopers the way Scotland would be. Why T&T and not Toga, not Angola? One reason, and the only one I can find, is that the centre-half of T&T plays his club football with Glasgow Rangers - Marvellous Marvin Andrews, an extraordinary man whose playing skills are less than the effort he gives to each game, which is total. You want commitment, Marvin is the man. Also, he holds Christian beliefs so strong he’s a registered faith-healer - when he suffered from cruciate ligament damage, which usually sidelines an avergage player for months, he trusted God more than the surgeons and he played on and on, game after game, with no apparent detrimental side-effects. He played through this injury with courage and willingness and an incandescent smile. A modest man, likeable and approachable, he seems to transcend the bilious sectarianism that infests the game in Glasgow. He’s God’s man, and is admired, even revered, for his raw energy and his simple faith. He has a large cult following - which includes some who believe, with justification, that he’s not the best centre-half in the world, not even the best in Scotland, but he has a quality of radiant simplicity and honesty that touches the hardest hearts. Marvin brightens a dull day in Glasgow. He epitomises spirit and determination, and the people of Scotland admire the guy who gives his heart, and his ligament damange, to every game he plays.

Maybe he can brighten the World Cup in the same way. He missed the first game, a creditable 0-0 draw with Sweden, but he will probably play in the next match. Scots hope so - he’s the nearest thing we have to a representative in Germany. He’s an Honorary Scot, and we’re proud to have him. And Trinidad and Tobago go where the Scottish team failed. May they flourish. They carry Tartan hopes with them.

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